Why IVF pioneers were denied public money

MILLIONS of babies have been born after in-vitro fertilisation – but the technique was initially scorned as irrelevant and its inventors dismissed as publicity-hungry.

Just after the world’s first IVF baby, Louise Brown, celebrated her 32nd birthday, an analysis of archived material has revealed why the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) refused to fund the work that led to her conception (Human Reproduction, DOI&colon; 10.1093/humrep/deq155).

The documents also reveal that IVF pioneers Patrick Steptoe, a gynaecologist then based in Oldham, UK, and Robert Edwards, at the time a medically unqualified physiologist at the University of Cambridge, were not seen as …

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